


Taking BP II:  Javier Lopez

by light_source



Series: Taking BP [2]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M, San Francisco Giants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:26:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javi Lopez's lifetime dream was to become an FBI agent.  But then baseball intervened.  </p><p>Or did it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking BP II:  Javier Lopez

His cover is nearly uncrackable.  That’s because no one would ever suspect a baseball player of being a spook.

Javier Lopez’s dad had been a special agent, would still be if the Bureau didn’t require everyone to retire at 57.  At 62, Jávier López Sr., who was raised in the slums of Arecibo, still rises every morning at five, reads the ‘Markets’ section of the _Wall Street Journal_ , and runs ten miles before breakfast.  

That’s how it’s been as long as Javi can remember.  Growing up in the split-level ranch in Alexandria, every morning was the same:  by the time the boys were up for breakfast, there was only the smell of coffee and the paper, neatly refolded on the placemat at the head of the table, to remind them that their father had been there before they woke up, and he wouldn’t be home till they’d gone to bed.

His mom likes to say that Javi Jr.’s third word was ‘Quantico,’ and he’d certainly grown up knowing how to prepare himself for a career as a G-Man.  Don’t drink, don’t smoke, and for fuck’s sake don’t use. (Come to think of it, don’t swear, either.)  You’ll need excellent grades and an even better college.  Remember to watch yourself, because they’ll certainly be watching you.  

At UVA he’d majored in psych and pledged Phi Gamma Delta and had two fairly serious girlfriends, both beautiful and blonde and smarter than he was.  At 22, when he was finally degreed and Phi Beta Kappa’d,  he’d applied to the Academy.  As is routine, a team of agents had fanned out to interview everyone who’d known him.  Was there any record of addiction, illegal drugs?  Psychological instability?  Bad grades?  Political activism?  The names of women he’d dated?  Had anyone ever known Javi to be - 

No, they hadn’t.  Javi was the real deal.  Tall, dark and handsome.  Off-the-map smart.  Quiet.  A natural athlete.  Likes the kind of movies that have subtitles.   _Marriage material,_ said the girlfriends of his girlfriends.

The one thing Javi hadn’t counted on was baseball.  Turns out baseball’s in the Lopez blood - both his grandfathers were pitchers in the old Boricua leagues - and Javi had that rarest of gifts, a lefty arm.  He’d played for the Cavaliers all four years, partly because left-handed pitchers slip easily into the roster, and partly because he knew a varsity letter would make him look ‘well-rounded’ on his FBI application.  

Javi had never really taken baseball seriously - he’d treated it the way a nineteen-year-old boy treats a summer romance that he knows he’ll eventually outgrow.  But in his senior year, he went 12 and 9, batted .318, and had 71 RBIs for the Cavs.  Scouts were showing up at his games with radar guns, and he was getting letters from coaches in the Cape Cod League, the Texas League.  In March, when he started working on his Academy applications, he realized he couldn’t just walk away from baseball.  What had begun as a crush had turned into the kind of love that takes away your appetite and calls at 3 a.m.  The kind of love that doesn’t understand the word ‘no.’

Walter Tollefson, the head of the team of agents that’d recruited Javi, was the one who came up with the solution.  There’d been a lot of labor disputes in professional baseball in the past couple seasons, threats of strikes and lockouts, and there was this unionista guy Donald Fehr who’d been stirring things up for years.  The steroid scandals of the nineties had begun to spread like a bad case of the flu.  The Bureau needed men, what Tollefson referred to as _muddy boot sojers_ , to keep an eye on testing protocols and reasonable cause. 

Quantico had arranged for Javi to fit in his twenty weeks of New Agent training while he was pitching in the Texas League for the El Paso Diablos.  It hadn’t been easy.  He’d sometimes had to get by on four hours of sleep and half a Kit Kat for breakfast.  When he woke up in the middle of the night, he’d learned to be careful about banging his knees on unfamiliar furniture.  

He’d explained away his frequent trips to Virginia by telling his teammates on the Diablos that his mom had cancer.  

It was a lie he’d hated, and not just because he’d feared it’d come back to bite him in the ass.  It was the first of the big lies he knew he’d have to tell as an agent, the lies that would become the fabric of his life.

He’d been called up by the Rockies the same week he’d graduated from the Academy.

//

Jávier Lopez, LHP, pitched for five major-league teams in seven years.  During that period, his ERA looked like an EKG.  He went from being an opening-day starter to being a situational lefty, from pitching 110 every fifth day to throwing only a third of an inning twice a week.  Every summer, it seemed, his team - the Rockies, the D-Backs, the Red Sox, the Pirates - traded him across the clubhouse in the middle of the season.  And even when he’d stayed with an organization, he’d spent a fair amount of time ping-ponging between the majors and the minors.  One time he’d been sent all the way down to short-season single-A.  

What does Javi have to show for all this?  To this day, he can sleep sitting up as long as he’s got an armrest.  He uses an app on his smartphone to track his time of service.  He’s got a World Series championship ring from the historic Red Sox victory over the Rockies.  Yet people still mistake him on the field for that other guy, the tall one, what’s his name?  

Manny Acta once said that _statistics are like bikinis; they show a lot, but not everything,_ and in Javi’s case, this is more than true.  But that’s because the wild fluctuations in his career say less about baseball than they do about his role as an agent.  Tollefson, who became his report, made sure Javi understood that spying, like pitching, requires unpredictable movement.  Javi had learned that short acquaintance gave him the best leverage, and he’d developed a handy gauge for this.  Whenever he knew the way home from the yard well enough to drive it without thinking, he knew it was time for a change.

_Called up.  Sent down. Traded.  DFA’d.  Outrighted.  Ended the season five days before eligibility for free agency._  In one game for the Red Sox, when he’d given up five runs in a third of an inning, Terry Francona’d made him play out the rest of the inning in right field.  

It’s a mess on paper, this career, but know this: against Javi Lopez, left-handed batters hit only .162.  That’s the lowest average in the league.  He’s a specialist in the haiku of baseball - the single tough-but-strategic out - and coming and going is his trade.

//

Javi usually spends the All-Star break at FBI headquarters in DC, where everyone on the team assumes he’s visiting his family.  He’s settled into a routine for these visits.  Tollefson spends a day or so debriefing him, and then he spends a couple of days with the Enforcement guys, getting updated on open cases and new technology, and prepped for his second-half assignments.  

The bad news is that he’s going to be traded again this summer, on July 31.  It’s bad news because, in spite of his prejudices against gritty rust-belt cities, Javi has grown to love Pittsburgh.  His apartment in in Squirrel Hill is next to a running trail, and he’s gotten attached to the rhythm of Yinzer talk and the food, especially the sausage-and-pepper sandwiches at Uncle Charley’s.  He’ll miss the Buccos, the most loveable bunch of losers he’s ever known.

The good news is that he’s going to San Francisco, a city he’s always wanted to live in.  His assignment there will be fairly straightforward: he’ll be tracking a young catcher with the improbable name of Buster Posey. The guy was called up from Triple A in May, and he’s been blowing everyone away, behind the plate and at it.  He’s so good it’s unreal, and the Bureau believes there’s reasonable cause to investigate whether his performance has been pharmaceutically enhanced.

The expandable manila file on the young catcher is four inches thick, and there’s so many megabytes of electronic documents to go with it that they don’t all fit on a single thumb drive.  Yet Javi’s work sounds simple: figure out if the guy’s using PEDs.  

It's not that easy. An agent’s first resource is clubhouse scuttlebutt.  But sorting through players’ stories in pursuit of the truth can be as difficult as finding a earring that’s been dropped in a field.  Major-league baseball is a business, and every pitch, every at-bat, counts.  The fear and trepidation that accompany roster decisions manifest as rumor.  Any player who’s doing particularly well, especially a young one, makes all the other ones sweat.  He becomes a source of anxiety, and a target for the rage and resentment of the pack.

//

One thing about San Francisco makes Javi’s job easier: the relievers don’t have a separate bullpen. Instead, they hang out with everyone else in the dugout, which gives him a chance to talk smack and watch how the players handle themselves as they react to each other, to the managers and coaches, and to the game itself.

Like all catchers, Posey spends a lot of time strapping and unstrapping his gear when it’s his turn to bat.  Lopez has noticed that Buster tends to leave his equipment in a particular spot on the bench where it’ll be easy to retrieve, so Javi starts settling there during games.  One afternoon, when Buster gets a three-run homer against the Cubs, he skips back into the clubhouse on the balls of his feet and slaps the hands that spring up in his path like a gauntlet.

He’s buckling his pads back on, pressing together the strips of velcro, when Javi extends his arms above his head, stretching, opening his chest in a way that he instinctively feels is dangerous, even if it's necessary. He knows how quickly things can go wrong.

Posey drops down beside him and throws out his legs as though he’s kicking back in a lounge chair.

\- Man, that felt _fantastic,_ he says.  

Javi lowers his eyelids and looks over at Buster, sidelong.

\- Not many things in life that’re that good, huh?  

\- It’s the sweet spot, says Buster, - not so much how it sounds - you know, everyone’s always talking about the crack of the bat - but how it feels.  The way it kinda shudders in your hands.   _Man._

__Javi’s eyes open suddenly, and he’s aware that Buster’s looking at him.   The catcher’s eyes hold his for a long moment, as if he’s considering, and then they float away and back, along the lines of Javi’s body, his long legs, the way his back curls into the slump like a quarter moon.  And then they come to rest on Javi’s face, his eyes and his lips. Buster licks the corner of his half-open mouth.

//

Everyone calls them ‘lockers’ but actually they’re more like open-faced closets, armoires without the doors.  There’s only one little compartment that locks, high up, for your wallet and keys and, in Javi’s case, his championship ring on the days he decides to wear it.  

It’s a polygraph, this ring.  It’s as enormous and vulgar as something a Vegas matron would wear, and it has this peculiar effect on baseball players.  If they don’t have one of their own, some of them are as captivated by it as sorority girls who catch sight of another girl’s engagement ring, and as envious.  Guys like that’ll cluster around, ask to try it on, make jokes about Bill Buckner’s legs and the Curse of the Bambino, jokes that Javi could recite in his sleep.  

Other guys hang back.  Their faces close up in judgment; they say nothing.  They turn away deliberately as if to point out that they have nothing to say about this gaudy object and the player who has the gall to flaunt it.  

What Javi’s found is that it’s the second kind of guy who’s usually hiding something.  

And Buster Posey, interestingly enough, is that kind of guy.

//

Coincidentally or perhaps by design - because the Bureau works silently it’s often hard to tell - Javi’s locker is next to Buster’s, at the end of a row by the wall that leads to the training rooms.  The fact that there’s no player on the other side is convenient.  It means that Javi only has to keep half of his vision open when he’s watching how Buster dresses and undresses, how Buster handles himself, while he’s checking for acne or irritability or the bloody kleenexes that signal nosebleeds, one of the telltale symptoms of steroid abuse.

A long time ago he learned it was nearly futile to look for ampules and syringes and unlabeled amber prescription bottles.  Players who’re juicing aren’t doing it in the clubhouse, in plain sight of their teammates.  It’s happening at home, or in a trainer’s private consultation room, or in the handicapped-access restroom that has the thumbturn lock.

Instead, Javi’s become like a tracker looking for sign.  And the signs, once he’d learned to recognize them, are pretty persistent and pretty unmistakable.  Unaccountable rage; grandstanding; zits and blood and a widening of the spaces between the front teeth. The overhanging eyebrows we think of as Neanderthal.  

And there's one other symptom that he hasn’t been able to actually talk about to Tollefson, for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand:  massive, unexpected boners, the kind he associates with high school and raging hormones, the kind that make guys always walk around with a towel handy, slapped over their shoulder, in case they have to cover something up.

//

Today Javi only has to pitch a third of the eighth.  He retires the batter with a two-hopper to second and has to remind himself to wait for the knock-kneed Bochy to amble out to the mound for the ball.  While he’s waiting, he notices Buster’s standing up, rubbing the side of his glove arm with his right hand.  And then he slides back his mask with a single motion, like a soldier lifting a sword, and dangles it from his arm.  His eyes are narrowed - he doesn’t have the benefit of the shade from the brim of his cap - but Javi feels it on the side of his neck and turns.  

The catcher’s just looking at him, no big deal, but there’s something about it that freezes Javi up, so that when Boch touches his hand, it's like he’s been slapped.

//

Because they’re late-inning pitchers, Javi and Brian Wilson like to lounge around after games, watching reruns of _Iron Chef_ and, if it’s late enough after a day game, _Jeopardy!_ , for which they keep a running tally.  But even Wilson’s cleared out tonight since there’s a party at Zito’s. 

_Perfect,_ thinks Javi, who’s found himself alone in the locker room.  He pulls his chair up to the front of his locker, pulls out his glove, and slowly unties the lacing.  

He can lace and re-lace his glove for a long time, if need be.  As long as he needs to. 

//

Once the recessed lights go down - they’re triggered by motion detectors - and he’s confident he’s alone, Javi begins to sift through Posey’s locker, starting out at the bottom left corner and working methodically up.  He’s not expecting to find anything, but he’s nothing if not thorough, and he likes to rule out the possibility of physical evidence.  

When his fingers find the outline of an ampule in the pocket of the sweatpants, he nearly jumps from the adrenaline rush.  He stops and takes another glance around the room - no one, and the lights’ll warn him if anyone’s coming.  He fishes it out.  It’s unlabeled.  Deeper in the pocket his fingers - tentative, to avoid a needle stick - find out a baggie with two hypos sealed in protective plastic.

He’s bagging the ampule and the needles when the lights suddenly flash on.  

//

When he feels Posey’s breath on the back of his neck, and Posey’s knees pinning his against the wall, Javi turns his head, his cheek plastered against the painted cinderblock.

\- I been watching you, Lopez, spits Posey so close to his ear that it feels like the hollow rasp of a snake - and _I ain’t havin’ it._

Buster’s got his right arm pinned against his back, and those thighs of his are brutally powerful, so Javi knows his only chance to break the hold is to stop resisting.  He lets out a long breath and with it the tension in his shoulders and thighs and glutes begins to fade.  Posey presses harder for a moment, and then Javi feels the surprise in his release.  He dips his shoulder and twists himself around in the catcher’s grasp, and then they’re face to face.  

Suddenly Posey’s mouth is on his, pressing so hard that Javi can feel his skull under his hair.  It doesn’t matter, though, because Javi’s kissing him back.

//

Here are some things that Javi doesn’t tell Tollefson in November, in the post-postseason debriefing.

How curiously soft the catcher’s mouth was, once they’d locked themselves into a single breath, and the feel of his teeth against Javi’s lips, like a threat.

How Posey’d grabbed his ass with both big hands and nearly lifted him off the floor, and jammed one thigh between Javi’s legs, shimmying his hips enough to make it clear what he had in mind.

And how somewhere in the middle of all this, Javi stopped thinking.  About what an agent was supposed to do.  About how he’d explain all this, when he was debriefed.  

The briefs he was thinking about then were the ones Buster was pushing away from his thighs, the way his back straightened when the catcher took his dick in hand, his touch both strong and soft, and pressed his open mouth against Javi’s neck, his mouth tracing the corner of his jaw.

//

What Javi chooses to tell Tollefson about his investigation has very little to do with what actually happened that night.  And what life’s been like since then, since the day after, when Buster greeted him in front of their lockers formally, politely, like they'd never met each other before.  

And in those moments when he’s driving back from the yard, what Javi thinks about now isn’t where he’ll be next.  It’s about where he’s been, and what he’s left, and the stories he’s had to tell himself in order to live.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For sunsetfog, who gets the Javi thing.
> 
> See "Javier Lopez is Agent Zero in SF Giants' bullpen," by Scott Ostler of the San Francisco _Chronicle,_ 30 October 2010. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/29/SPDH1G42MS.DTL.
> 
> N.B.: The baseball facts and many of the details about Javi's life and career are canon. All else is fiction, not true, never happened, never will.


End file.
